CHAPTER VI.

"I WILL COME AGAIN, MY DEAR."

"I wish my friend, Glengall, were at home," said Mr. Graydon, leaning back in the chair by the study fire. "He'd give you a mount while you were waiting for Johnny Maher's little mare. The hounds meet at Lettergort to-day."

He looked wistfully through the bare trees on the lawn, as though he saw in imagination the scarlet horsemen pounding away after the streaming line of hounds.

His pupil thrust into a book a sketch of Pamela which he had been making absent-mindedly.

"Why don't you hunt, sir?" he asked, with sympathy.

"So I do, my lad, when I can. But I can't afford to keep a horse, and there aren't many mounts to be had here. Glengall is going to set up stables when he comes back, and I'll have the run of them, I suppose. He's a good fellow--one wouldn't mind being obliged to him."

"The mare'll be a good one when she's broken," said the young man.

"The best in the world for Irish fences, if she does look a bit roughish."

"You'll ride her for me, when I am away at Christmas, to get her mouth in?"

"Thank you, my lad; I should like to." Mr. Graydon's eye kindled with pleasure. "But I didn't know you were going. It seems a longish way to go home for Christmas."

"My mother would like to see me."

"To be sure, to be sure. I quite understand, and, of course, there are friends in London you naturally want to see."

"No one very particularly, sir."

"Ah, well! it will be a holiday from this dull place."

"No, I assure you, sir. It is partly because I have some--some business I want to settle. It is really true that there is no one I go to see whom I regard more than the friends I shall be leaving behind."

Sir Anthony blushed hotly over this avowal, but his unsuspicious host only saw in it the shamefacedness with which a man, and especially a young man, makes a display of his feelings.

"Now, that is kind of you," he said, looking at his pupil benignantly. "I am sure our Christmas will be dull without you. Do the girls know you are going? They won't like it, eh? And they will be disappointed that you will not be here for the Vandaleur affair."

"I am coming back for that, sir."

"I am glad. It is really the children's first outing. It is a dull enough affair for young people, but then they will wear their pretty frocks and see strange faces. We are such quiet people, Trevithick, that even Vandaleur's big dinner and reception, which comes off regularly whenever there is a general election in sight"--Mr. Graydon broke off to laugh and rub his hands--"is an event for us. But we are forgetting our Tacitus, my boy. Let us get back to the old fellow."

At that moment there was the sound of a horn, and, with the shout of a boy, Mr. Graydon was up.

"Come along, Trevithick," he cried, rushing away, hatless and coatless. "We shall get a glimpse of them. What a day for a scent! They are sure to find at Larry's Spinney."

His words came back to his pupil, who was getting under weigh more leisurely.

"Dear old boy!" he muttered to himself. "It's not surprising my father never forgot him. I wonder why the mater regards him with so deadly a hatred, though?"

At lunch Mr. Graydon announced that Sir Anthony was going home for Christmas. There was a shrill expostulation from Sylvia, and even a mild protest from Mary, but Pamela said nothing. Perhaps it was not news to Pamela.

"You will not be here for the skating," said Sylvia aggrievedly; "that is, if there's going to be any. And I've promised them at the Rectory that you'd recite at their penny reading and give away the presents at the Christmas-tree, besides managing the magic lantern. And, oh!"--the magnitude of the misfortune coming full upon her--"you're not surely going to miss the Vandaleur dinner?"

"No, Miss Sylvia, I shall be here for it certainly. I wouldn't miss it for anything; but I object to your engagements for me with the Rectory people. I'd rather be shot than recite, and--the other things are beyond me," laughing.

"Never mind, then," said the young lady airily. "Lord Glengall will do just as well. I shall like to see him distributing the articles. Besides, he will please the people better than a 'baronite,' and be of the rale ould blood, too."

"Sylvia!" said her father, with a rebuke in his voice.

"Never mind, papa dear. Sir Anthony understands all about his being only a 'baronite.' Bridget told him the other day that if the master had his rights 'tisn't teaching a 'Sir' he'd be."

"So she did," said Sir Anthony.

Mr. Graydon laughed.

"Ah, well, my boy! you mustn't tell your mother what odd people you've found among the wild Irish--will you?"

"She wouldn't understand a bit, but I'll tell her what dear friends I have found and made at Carrickmoyle."

He blushed again, and Mr. Graydon thought how well his modesty became him.

"Ah, well!" he said, "I suppose we must make up our minds to spend Christmas without you. What are you going to do this afternoon?"

"I'm going to Maher's to see the mare, and put her through her paces. I'd like to have her stabled here as soon as possible. If she's ready, she can come at once."

"To be sure. There's stabling for twenty horses here, though the stalls are bare--worse luck! But we won't let Sheila starve. Shall we, girls? I'll go bail these children will make a fine pet of her, Trevithick."

"I shall be all the fonder of her, sir, though I'm well pleased with her at present."

"She's a sweet little bit of horseflesh," assented Mr. Graydon. "I think I shall come with you, if you don't object to my company. I've a bit of business with Johnny myself."

When they returned in time for the afternoon cup of tea, they found an old yellow barouche standing before the door.

"Ah, Miss Spencer is here," said Mr. Graydon. "She's rather an oddity, my boy, so prepare to meet one."

"I heard her story from Miss Pamela. It is very sad."

"When I was a boy of thirteen or fourteen I remember her a brilliantly lovely young woman. That was before that scoundrel came in her way."

When they entered the drawing-room Miss Spencer was sitting with her back to them, almost hidden in a deep armchair. The three girls were sitting or standing about her, all evidently much interested.

"Here is papa, and our guest with him, Miss Spencer," said Mary.

The little old woman came out of her chair with a sudden darting movement like that of a bird. Her gaze went from Mr. Graydon to the younger man.

"Oh!" she cried. "Whom did you say?"

She looked at the stranger for a moment with an agony of expectation in her yet bright eyes, while she fumbled nervously for the long-handled glasses at her side. When she had found them she peered at him through them; then dropped them, the expression of her face changing to indifference.

"I beg your pardon, sir," she said. "I am expecting a friend, and for a moment I thought you were he."

"How do you do, Miss Spencer?" broke in Mr. Graydon. "I see you have Stella under the barouche again. I'm glad she has recovered from her lameness."

"The foot has come all right, thank you," said Miss Spencer, assuming quite an ordinary manner. "You weren't hunting to-day?"

"No; I must wait till Glengall sets up his stables."

"Ah, Glengall is coming home soon?"

"He expects to reach Plymouth on the eighteenth. He will be at home for Christmas."

"There'll be nothing in order for him in that old barrack of his."

"He'll stay here while he's getting things straight. He is going to make a grand place of Glengall. He has plenty of money, and the heart to spend it, and the practical wit to direct it."

"What will he do with it then? He has neither chick nor child."

"There is always time, Miss Spencer."

The slightly mad, brooding look came back to the little wizened white face.

"Yes, of course, there is time," she said, dreamily. "I remember someone--who was it?--who knew Glengall when she was a young woman and he was a little boy. Glengall can't be old, of course, and any day people may return--mayn't they?"

"Why, to be sure they may. Glengall did, though he was twenty years out of the reach of civilisation."

"Oh, I wasn't thinking of Glengall. It was of someone much younger, someone about the age of that young gentleman there."

Trevithick stood in the background and watched her with honest eyes of wonder and pity. She was smoothing the pink silk of her gown, while her eyes watched the fire as if she saw something very happy in it. Her skin was waxen white, and her features sharpened, but the brilliant eyes kept their beauty, and her little old hands, covered with rings, were delicately shaped. Her hair was half-white through the original black, and very oddly her pink bonnet, with its wreath of roses inside, sat on the streaked hair and over the white face. She had thrown off a large sable cloak on to the back of her chair.

Sylvia now broke in on Miss Spencer's half-mad mood. She touched one of the hands tenderly. Trevithick, as he noticed it, thought that it was the first time he had seen Sylvia's face really soft; and wonderfully the new expression completed the girl's beauty. So she will look, he thought, some day, when she is in love, like--like Pamela. But Pamela's serious face was hidden from him now with a fire-screen she held in her hand. He had noticed of late that she seldom looked at him, nor was he displeased. He knew the secret she was afraid to reveal.

"We are all going to the Vandaleur affair, Miss Spencer," Sylvia was saying. "It will be on the thirtieth. There are to be great doings--acres of marquees for the diners, and the winter garden lit by electricity, and I don't know what besides."

Miss Spencer came back to every-day life with a start.

"To the Vandaleur affair, child! Why, who is going to take you?"

"Papa, of course. He loves a little outing, though he won't admit it. He says he'd rather stay at home and have a quiet night's work at his book, and get some hot tea ready for us by the time we come home."

"Why shouldn't I take you?" said the old lady. "I'm hardly old enough for a chaperon, of course, still I've the carriage, and I'd enjoy the function. I haven't been at one since the time Tom Charteris was master of the hounds. How long ago is that?"

Mr. Graydon, to whom she spoke, answered her without looking at her.

"A goodish few years ago."

"It can't be," said the old lady; "not more than four or five at the outside. I wore white satin and pearls. That reminds me: what are you going to wear, minx?"

This to Sylvia, at the same time softly pulling her ear.

"We've got pattern-books of silk stuffs from Dublin. They're dirt-cheap; but the dressmaking will be the bother. However, I daresay we'll manage. Mrs. Collins' Nancy, who is a lady's-maid, is expected home for Christmas. She'll cut the frocks out, and we'll sew them ourselves. She'll know the fashions."

"Stuff and nonsense, child! Your first public appearance, too."

"It's Pam's also. But you'll see we'll look very nice. I shouldn't be surprised if the prince fell in love with me."

"What prince? Oh, I see, Cinderella's. But Cinderella went magnificently to her evening party--not in cheap and nasty stuffs cobbled up anyhow."

"The prince wouldn't see that. He'd be disconsolate when I disappeared at twelve o'clock, and he'd send all over the country to find the fit of my glass slipper, and Molly and Pam would cry tears of rage because it wouldn't even fit on their toes."

"You're not ball-going, minx."

"It will be just as good. There'll be a beautiful dinner, and everyone in the county there, and afterwards there will be acres of beautiful things to see. It is a thousand pities Mr. Vandaleur is an absentee."

"If he wasn't, he wouldn't have to remind you of his existence now," said the old lady cynically. "But am I to be chaperon?"

"Well, I'll tell you what, Miss Spencer," said Mr. Graydon. "If you'd take charge of these children, I'd be greatly obliged to you. The fact is that I've to attend a sort of unofficial meeting of Vandaleur's supporters in the afternoon, and he has hospitably offered me a bed. So I thought I'd take my bag over and dress there after the meeting."

"And stay all night? I knew it," cried Sylvia. "Papa pretended it was such a bother, and all the time he was longing to be in for every bit of it. Only he didn't know what to do with us."

Mr. Graydon laughed.

"Maybe you wouldn't like it yourself. I shall be button-holed by Musgrave and Frost and Clitheroe, and every man in the county who thinks he has a head for politics and wants a patient listener."

"And you will go at it hammer and tongs with the best of them, and forget you have daughters. I don't suppose you'll even remember at dinner-time to see whether anyone is asking us if we've an appetite."

"The young fellows will do that. Every boy in the county will be there, including the 300th from Dangan Barracks."

"I daresay," said Sylvia: "you're always ready to shift your responsibilities. Never mind, Miss Spencer; I daresay we shall be able to find someone who will look after us, if it's only a waiter."

"Oh, indeed, you'll find someone to befriend you, never fear. And so will Pam. And so shall I. But what about Molly?"

"Never mind me, Miss Spencer," said Mary. "It would never do to have you chaperoning three girls, and I shouldn't enjoy it a bit. I shall stay up and have tea for you after your cold drive."

"I don't know what girls are coming to," said Miss Spencer; "I shouldn't like to have to stay at home myself."

"We don't mind Molly," cried her sisters; "she really likes to stay at home and write her perpetual letters."

"I shouldn't mind having the three of you," went on Miss Spencer; "we'd pass for four sisters."

"We should never look as lovely as you in that white satin and pearls," said Sylvia, fondly.

"I was much admired," said Miss Spencer, complacently. "But now I must be going. I've letters to write before dinner: I don't want to lose my beauty-sleep sitting up to write them."

When Sir Anthony came into the drawing-room before dinner, he found only Pamela stretching her hands to the wood fire in the low grate.

The lover stooped down and kissed them.

"Have you been out?" he asked in a whisper.

"Only to the stables with Sylvia. Your Sheila has come. She is a dear thing."

"You like her, Pam?"

"Who could help it? She looks so wild and shy, and she is so gentle at the same time."

"Do you like her because she is mine, Pam? Do you, just a little because of that? Say you do, Pam."

"Just a little," whispered Pam.

"Why, if you like, she shall be yours, when--when everything has come right. I think she would carry a lady beautifully. What do you say, Pam? Would you like her, _then_?"

"Yes," said Pamela, with her eyes very bright.

"You didn't seem to mind my going away at Christmas, Pam. You were the only one who didn't protest."

"I know you wouldn't go if you could help it."

"Wise little woman. I must go, darling--to unravel a tangled skein. Afterwards it will be paradise, Pam. I will come back as soon--as soon as ever I can. I shall be in a fury of impatience till I come back."

"And I," said Pam, lifting her eyes to her lover, and flooding him with their light.

"Sweetheart! you were a coquette when I knew you first, Pam. Now you don't try me as many girls try their lovers."

"I have only love for you now. Ah! what should I do if you did not come back?"

"I will come back, 'though 'twere ten thousand mile.' I shall be here for your great function. Do you think I would have you go without me?"

"I shouldn't care for it without you."

"There will be other men there, Pamela, to see how beautiful you are. I must be there to guard my own."

"There is no need for that."

"I believe you, my love, you are as much mine as if you were my wife. And I am as much yours."

"Love can only mean that."

"Ah, my darling! how sweet you are! You wouldn't care for the admiration of other men, Pam?"

"Only for one."

"It is hard to be wise, Pam, when I am with you. You are too sweet. It is fortunate I am going."

"When you come back it will be different."

"Yes; you will have to make up to me for my prudence all these months. I have been good, Pam; I have never asked you for a kiss."

"Yes, you have been good."

"And you, you are a girl in ten thousand. You have never asked me what stood between us--a shadowy barrier, Pam, but even that must go before I claim you, my queen. When I come back, Pam! Ah, when I come back!"

"Here is Molly," said Pam, in a low voice, as her sister entered the room.

END OF CHAPTER SIX.

GREAT ANNIVERSARIES

_IN DECEMBER._

By the Rev. A. R. Buckland, M.A., Morning Preacher at the Foundling Hospital.

December is a month of great names. On December 21st, 1117, according to some authorities, there was born, in a house that stood on the site of the Mercers' Chapel in Cheapside, Thomas à Becket. Whether men side with Church or State, and are for or against Becket, they will hardly deny him the right to be remembered as an outstanding figure in our history. On the last day of the month died another great Englishman; like Becket, an Oxford man, and a potent factor in the religious development of our nation. On December 31st there passed away at Lutterworth John Wycliffe. His bones, thirteen years after burial, were dragged from their resting-place and cast into the River Swift. Thomas Fuller turns that shameful act of ecclesiastical malice to good use. "Thus," he says, "this brook did convey his ashes into the Avon, the Avon into the Severn, the Severn into the narrow sea, and this into the wide ocean. And so the ashes of Wycliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, which is now dispersed all the world over." On the 13th of the month, many generations later, there came into the world Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, an ecclesiastic of still another type. No modern dean ever identified himself with his cathedral as Stanley did with Westminster Abbey. Its national character was always present to his mind. His simple piety, his good works, his sympathy with Nonconformists, all helped to make the Dean himself rather a national possession than merely an ecclesiastic. He died in 1881.

We have had the Church, let us come to the State. It is a rich month that claims the birth both of William Ewart Gladstone (December 29th) and of his great rival, Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (December 20th). They began their careers under very different auspices. Eton and Oxford prepared the one for immediate entry, under favouring circumstances, into Parliamentary life. The other was educated privately, designed for the law, and first caught the public eye as an author when he burst upon the world with the novel, "Vivian Grey." Mr. Gladstone survived his rival seventeen years.

There died on December 14th one whom the British nation can only number amongst its own worthies by adoption. The death of the Prince Consort in the prime of life, and just when his very considerable powers and great devotion were beginning to be understood by those who at first regarded him with doubt because he was a foreigner, plunged our Queen into sorrow which long darkened the life of the Court and was felt by the whole nation. The pure, unblemished life of the Prince Consort, his sincere desire to advance the welfare of the people, his ready promotion of the arts and sciences, as well as his tender devotion to the Queen, have long been understood and valued by the nation which he served.

To come to other fields: there was born in London on December 9th, 1608, John Milton. Educated at Cambridge, he early gave free play to the powers which in their issue have made his name familiar wherever the English language is spoken. Few remember him as a writer of polemical treatises on affairs of the State and the Church, or even as Latin Secretary to Cromwell; but he was an old man and blind when he gave the world "Paradise Lost."

On the 12th there died Robert Browning, a poet who spoke to his age as few men have ever done, and spoke of God and the soul, of the here and the hereafter, with a clearness of faith which was as distinct as the robust manliness of his character.

December 28th is given as the date upon which Westminster Abbey was consecrated in 1065; and on December 2nd that other minster, St. Paul's Cathedral, was opened in 1697. Legend says that the same King Sebert who founded the original St. Paul's also founded the Abbey at Westminster, whilst another story invokes the aid of King Offa. There is, however, clear testimony to the establishment of a Benedictine abbey at Westminster in the time of Edgar; that is antiquity respectable enough to satisfy most of us. A cathedral on this site is mentioned by the Venerable Bede as early as 604; but the actual fabric of St. Paul's has, according to Mr. Loftie, undergone greater vicissitudes than that of any other cathedral in England. The present St. Paul's was begun in 1675 and finished in 1710. Its cost was £736,752. Sir Christopher Wren, its architect, received for his services £200 a year. What were then called "the new ball and cross" on the cathedral were completed in this same month in 1821.

An old calendar assures me that on the 15th of this month, in the year 1802, "societies for abolishing the common method of sweeping chimneys" were instituted.

On the 20th of this month, in the year 1814, Samuel Marsden landed in New Zealand--a missionary anniversary worth recalling.

The Limits of Human Genius

_Pulpit at Gloucester Cathedral._

A Sermon Preached by the Very Rev. H. Donald M. Spence, D.D., Dean of Gloucester, at the Opening Service of the September (1898) Meeting of the Three-Choirs Festival in Gloucester Cathedral.

"As for Wisdom, what she is, and how she came up, I will tell you, and will not hide mysteries from you, but will seek her out from the beginning of her nativity, and bring the knowledge of her into Light, and will not pass over Truth."

The surroundings of a custodian of a mediæval cathedral, beautiful though they are, at the same time are unutterably pathetic. They tell him, do the pages of the old solemn Book of Stone he is never weary of turning over and of pondering upon, that the genius of man has its limits, which it may never pass; that the story of human progress to higher and ever higher levels is often a delusive one; that in past ages his forefathers were perhaps as noble and chivalrous--aye, nobler, more chivalrous than the men of his own generation--that their imagination was more brilliant and their hands more cunning; that if in some respects progress is visible, in others the movement is retrograde.

Again, a great mediæval cathedral like our own glorious Gloucester, inimitable in its fadeless beauty and matchless strength, surely deals a very heavy blow to human pride, and it teaches humility to the most competent and ablest of our number, for it is a conception belonging to a past age. A great gathering, however, like the present, numbering some six or seven thousand persons, is for varied reasons an inspiring one and bids us be trustful--even hopeful.

Dwell we a brief while first on our surroundings. Of all works devised by human ingenuity and carried on by human skill, the triumphs of architecture are among the most enduring, afford the most genuine and purest delight to the greater number of men and women, are confessedly the most attractive, perhaps the most instructive, as they are among the most enduring of human creations. The glories of Luxor and Karnak, which for several thousand years have been mirrored in the grey-green Nile; the white and gleaming shrines of Athens the bright and happy, the mighty ruins of Eternal Rome, are splendid instances.

But perhaps the conspicuous examples of this architecture, the most loved of human arts and crafts, are, after all, the mediæval cathedrals. The first object of interest for the modern traveller in search of health or rest is a cathedral. All sorts and conditions of men find delight in its contemplation. The delight, of course, is varied, but the strange and witching beauty appeals to them all. This appeal to the higher and devotional side of our nature speaks to every soul, to the unlearned as to the learned, to the mill-hand as to the scholar. The wanderer from the New World beyond the seas at once seeks them out, conscious that in them he will find a beauty and a joy such as he will never see or feel outside their charmed walls.

I have said that to the custodian of such a cathedral the surroundings are, if not sad, at least pathetic, for these magnificent and loved creations of human genius belong to a somewhat remote past, and, as far as these exquisite buildings are concerned, save for purposes of necessary repair--repair simply to arrest the ravages of time--for nearly four hundred years the clink of trowel and pickaxe has been hushed.

It is scarcely an exaggerated statement which speaks of architecture, in its noblest sense, as a lost art. Very significant are the words of one of the greatest of modern architects, who, after dwelling on the decadence of his loved art, tells us how "It is a somewhat saddening reflection--but there is no escaping from the conclusion--that the art which created the glorious abbeys and minsters, the beautiful parish churches so plentifully dotted over our country--abbeys, minsters, and churches which the churchmen of the second half of the nineteenth century so reverently and wisely restore and seek to copy stone by stone, arch by arch, window by window, down to the smallest bit of ornament--is a lost art! Men have come sorrowfully to see that mediæval architecture is the last link--perhaps the most beautiful as well as the last link--of that long chain of architectural styles, 'commencing in far-back ages in Egypt and passing on in continuous course through Assyria, Persia, Greece, Rome, and Byzantium, and thence taken up by the infant nations of modern Europe, and by them prolonged through successive ages of continuous progress till it terminated in the beautiful thirteenth-and fourteenth-century Gothic, and has never since produced a link of its own.... Alas! it is the last link of that mighty chain which had stretched unbroken through nearly four thousand years--the glorious termination of the history of original and genuine architecture.'" Well may men love it and seek to preserve the examples they possess of it, and aim at copying it as well as they can. These remarkable and melancholy words above quoted were deliberately spoken by Sir Gilbert Scott, R.A., LL.D., in his first lecture on Mediæval Architecture delivered at the Royal Academy some years ago.

So much for my note of sadness. Now let me strike a different chord.

Such a gathering as the present, I repeat, is an inspiring one, for it tells me that if one great art dies, He who loves us and has redeemed us at so great a price, gives His children something in its place. Now it is strange that amidst all the gorgeous and striking ceremonial of the mediæval services, with their wealth of colour and ornament, with all their touching and elaborate symbolism, music, as it is now understood, was unknown and comparatively neglected. In the noblest cathedral of the Middle Ages, in the stateliest Benedictine or Cistercian abbey, while the eye was filled with sights of solemnity and beauty, each sight containing its special and peculiar teaching, the ear was comparatively uncared for. Strangely monotonous and even harsh would chaunt and psalm and hymn, as rendered in the mighty abbeys of Westminster, Durham, or Gloucester in the days of the great Plantagenets, of the White Rose or Red Rose kings, sound to the musically trained ears of the worshippers of the second half of the nineteenth century. Indeed, music as a great science was unknown in pre-Reformation times. The most complete anthem-book may be searched through by the curious scholar, but scarcely a musical composer of any note will be found in these collections of a date earlier than the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It would seem as though, when architecture ceased in the sixteenth century to be a living craft, a new art was discovered and worked at by men.

A new art! I say these words, strange to some, with emphasis. One who has indeed a right to speak of music[1] thus voices my assertion. While telling us that certain grand forms of music loom out of the darkness of the earlier centuries of our era, the famous musician to whom I refer adds that little of what we understand of music existed before the later years of the fifteenth century. It was no mere renaissance, for that which had never been born could not be born again.

[1] Professor Hullah, in his "Lectures on the History of Modern Music," delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, published 1884. See, too, Professor Hullah's Royal Institution Lecture on the Transition Period of Musical History (1876).

In case some should think that too strong expressions are here used, it may be well to quote some of Professor Hullah's own words, which he used in the above-mentioned lecture at the Royal Institution:--"Music is a new art.... What we now call music ... what answers to our definition of music, has come into being only within comparatively few years; almost within the memory of men living." "I should say that in the scholastic music there was no art, and in the popular music no science; whence it is that the former has ceased to please, and the latter has for the most part perished utterly."

It was a new art which charmed and delighted men as they listened to the magic of the sounds evoked by the majesty of the compositions of Palestrina, or by the sweetness of the music of Marenzio. It is true, as I said, that certain grand forms of music loom out of the darkness of the remote past--shadowy forms--and the rare composers and writers of the music of the past are, as far as music is concerned, but the shadow of names now. I allude, as famous examples of these shadows of names, to names such as Gregory and Isidore, Hucbald and the eleventh-century _maestro_, Guido Aretino.

With extraordinary rapidity developed the new craft. To give here some familiar landmarks--

Henry VIII. was reigning before Josquin Deprès, whom all musicians revere as one of the earliest, certainly the most renowned, of the pioneers of modern music, became generally known in Europe. Josquin Deprès was born somewhere about the year 1466, dying about 1515, some ten or fifteen years before Palestrina was born. Luther said of him, "Other musicians do what they can with notes; Josquin does what he likes with them." The Abbate Baini alludes to him as "the idol of Europe"; and again writes, "Nothing is beautiful unless it be the work of Josquin."

The famous Roman School of music only dates from 1540. The oratorio, even in its more simple forms, made its appearance some seventy years later.

Not until the last years of our Queen Elizabeth were the names of Palestrina and Marenzio, those great early composers, conspicuous, and the Queen so loved of Englishmen had long fallen asleep before Carissimi, the earliest master of the sacred cantata in its many forms, gave his mighty impulse to the new-born art; while the works of his world-famed pupil Scarlatti, and of our own English Purcell, belong to the art-records of the days of William and Mary and Queen Anne. See how the whole of the marvellous story of music--as we understand music--belongs to quite recent days!

All through the eighteenth century, when the Georges reigned, architecture slept its well-nigh dreamless sleep. But the new art of music grew with each succeeding year, while the men whose names will never die lived and wrote.

It was this eighteenth century which saw a Beethoven, a Handel, a Bach, a Haydn, and a Mozart. As masters of the new-born craft none can be conceived greater.

The century now closing boasts, however, a long line of true followers and worthy disciples of those great ones, men whose names are household words in every European city.

But my brief record, necessarily dry and bald, of a momentous change in the teaching of the world would be incomplete without one word on the glorious instrument--the voice, so to speak--of these masters of a new art, the organ. The first organ known in Western Europe traditionally was sent to Pepin in France by the Emperor of Constantinople in 759, but Aldhelm, Bishop of Sherborne, in his poem on Virginity, some half a century earlier, apparently describes what appears to have been the organ. Elphege, Abbot of Winchester in the tenth century, is said to have caused a very large organ to be constructed; but, with this solitary exception, all the mediæval organs seem to have been small and comparatively unimportant instruments. The oldest organ-cases preserved do not date back further than the last years of the fifteenth century, and these by the side of modern organs are insignificant in size. Viollet le Duc, in his great work, gives us a picture of the Perpignan organ, one of the earliest (early in the sixteenth century). From this date the size rapidly increased.

In the "Rites of Durham," where a great mediæval church is described at the period of the Dissolution (1530-40), there were three organs in use in the abbey church, the principal one being only used at "principall Feasts," the pipes being "very faire and partly gilded." "Only two organs in England," says the "Rites," "of the same makinge, one in Yorke and another in Paules."

The most magnificent organ-case in Europe is the one in St. Janskirk at Bois le Duc, and, like the vast majority of the great organ-cases, is Renaissance in style. Viollet le Duc sums up the question in the following sentence:--

"It does not appear that great organs were in use before the fifteenth century, and it was only towards the close of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries that the idea of building organs of dimensions hitherto unknown was first conceived."

The organ, as we now know it, was born among us at the same date when architecture died. Like the music of the Middle Ages, in the days when these vast and peerless buildings arose, it is true the organ was not unknown; but, like mediæval music, it was a small, poor thing compared with the stupendous instrument we know and love. There was no great organ before the last years of the fifteenth century, when the Tudors reigned. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries witnessed its development, and acknowledged its surpassing grandeur, and recognised its fitness as one of the chief handmaids of the new great art.

Now the secret of the men who built this lordly abbey is lost; never again will such a triumph of, alas! a dead art arise to charm and to delight, to instruct and inspire the children of men. But we may still preserve and reverently use this rare and noble legacy of a vanished age as a shrine and a peerless teaching-home--a prayer-home, in which are taught the great evangelical truths by which Christian men live and breathe and have their being, the saving knowledge of the work of the Precious Blood, the glad Redemption-story, the story loved of men; the story which never ages, never palls, but which, like dew, descends on each succeeding generation of believers, and gives them new stores of faith and hope and love. This--these things--we try to do, and not without success, for as God's bright glory-cloud once brooded over the sacred desert-tent and the holy Jerusalem Temple, so now upon our beloved and ancient cathedral, with its almost countless services of praise and prayer and teaching, God's blessing surely rests.

"It sleeps," does our cathedral, as one has lately said in words beautiful as true--"it sleeps with its splendid dreams upon its lifted face." But it has, too, its many wakeful working hours. Not the least memorable of these will strike this week, when the charmed strains of Handel and Haydn, Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Beethoven, and of the great Englishmen, Gibbons and Boyce and Walmisley and Wesley, and last, but not least, of Hubert Parry, peal through these fretted vaults, "lingering and wandering on" among these wondrous chambers of inspired imagery; while the almost prophetic words of that truest English song-man Wordsworth become history:--

"Give all thou canst; high heaven rejects the lore Of nicely calculated less or more; So deem'd the man who fashion'd for the sense These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof Self-poised, and scoop'd into ten thousand cells, Where light and shade repose, where music dwells Lingering and wandering on as loth to die-- Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof That they were born for immortality."

A HERO IN DISGUISE

A Complete Story. By M. Westrup.

The girl was little, slender, insignificant--only her love made her heroic. The man was big, broad, one to be noticed in a crowd, and his love made him as helpless as a little child.

They stood opposite each other in the poor, shabby little room. His eyes devoured her face wildly, incredulously, but her eyes were fixed on a great hole in the faded carpet.

Her mind was chaotic, for with his eager words of love rang others, bewildering her. Side by side with his passionate outpouring of his love for her, his longing to have her for his own, to live for her and work for her, were other words--words of ambition and great aspirations, words of intending travel into far-away countries, of hardships and discomforts to be borne for the sake of the book that was to be written--the book that was to bring fame and satisfaction to the writer of it.

And these words rang with a deep note of earnestness and strength, and overpowered those eager, present tones that were pleading to her so wildly.

"I called you Kathleen Mavourneen last night, you remember, and you smiled and blushed!" he protested, roughly. "Why did you do it? Kathleen, you _do_ love me, you do! Why don't you speak to me? I tell you, I have seen it in your eyes. Why do you deny it now?"

She shook her head, and her heart cried in agony, "How long? How long?"

"Won't you try, then?" with a humbleness that was not natural to him. "Oh, Kitty, little Kitty, I cannot live without you!"

He held out his arms to her despairingly.

"I have a singing lesson to give at one o'clock," she said.

His arms fell to his sides. The sun streamed in on to the pretty, pale, downbent face of the girl, and on to the white, haggard face of the man who stood opposite.

There were no shadows in the little room--it was all glare and shabbiness.

"I will go," he said, and then his eyes caught fire; "but you are a flirt! Do you hear, a paltry, heartless flirt! You have led me on--played with me. You have made your eyes soft, your lips sweet, to amuse yourself at my expense! How do you do it?" with a little cynical laugh. "It's really clever--of its kind--you know----"

He moved towards the door.

"I beg your pardon," he said icily. "I should not have spoken so to a woman. Good-bye."

"You will begin your travels now?" she said.

He laughed.

"Why keep up the pretence?" he said; "it's rather late now to pretend any interest in my life."

She was silent.

At the door he paused.

He was a proud man, and he had an iron will.

But his love made him helpless and weak as a little child.

"Kathleen," he breathed, "you are sure?"

A moment she stood still and rigid as a statue.

"Little one, I love you so----" His voice was soft and caressing; but her love made her heroic. She raised her head. "I am sure," she said steadily.

* * * * *

The girl sat in a corner of the warm, gorgeous drawing-room, and wished vaguely that people would not nod and stare at her so energetically. She was used to it now, and tired of it.

She had never liked it, but fame brings notoriety in its train, and notoriety brings nods and whispers and stares.

She was dressed beautifully. She had always liked pretty things, and now she could have as many as she wanted.

The man stood over in a doorway and watched her with cynical eyes.

He had not seen her for five years, and as he stood there another man lounged up and spoke to him.

"Looking at _la belle Philomèle_?" he said; "she's quite the rage, you know. Ever heard her sing? You're only just back from the wilds, aren't you? Oh, well, of course you'll go to St. James's Hall to-morrow? She's going to sing, you know. Her voice is splendid. I never go to hear her myself--makes me feel I'm a miserable sinner somehow--does, 'pon my word. I've heard her twice, and then I dropped it. Don't like feeling small, you know."

He lounged away again, and the man with the cynical eyes still watched her.

Her head was turned away from him--only a soft, fair cheek and little ear nestling in a soft mass of hair, a white throat, and a lot of pale chiffon and silk, could he see. And suddenly the cheek and even neck were flooded with a red blush, and then they looked whiter than before. He wondered, and smiled bitterly as he did so.

And the girl's eyes remained fixed, eager, fascinated, on the long looking-glass before her.

But she was not looking at herself.

Afterwards he sought her.

"You were wise," he said mockingly, and her eyes grew dark with pain.

He took the seat beside her and played with the costly fan he had picked up.

"I must congratulate you," he said indifferently. "This"--with a comprehensive wave towards her dress and the diamonds at her throat--"is better than the old days."

"Yes."

"But perhaps you have forgotten so long as--what is it?--ten--no, five years ago?"

"No."

He furled and unfurled the fan in silence, and wondered who had given her the Parma violets in her hair.

"Your--book?" she said timidly.

He stared at her blankly.

She reddened slowly.

"You--you--were going to--to travel, and write about it--strange places----" she faltered.

"Oh, ah! yes, I believe I was--five years ago."

Her face was white again now.

"You _have_ travelled?" she ventured at last.

"Oh, yes! I've done nothing else for five years. I've shot tigers, bears--I've lived with Chinamen and negroes--chummed with cannibals once--oh!"--with a laugh--"I've had a fine time!"

Her eyes were wistful.

Her hostess brought up a man to be introduced, and when she turned again, the chair was empty.

She did not see him again for two weeks.

There was an added pathos in the beautiful voice.

_La belle Philomèle_ brought tears to many thousands of eyes, but her own were dry and restless. It was dawning on her that she had made a mistake--five years ago.

"Seen Hugh Hawksleigh?" she heard one man say to another. "Never been so disappointed in a chap in my life. Years ago he promised great things. Those articles of his on 'Foreign Ways and Doings' made quite a sensation, you know. And there was some talk of wild travels and a book that was going to be _the_ book of the day. The travels are all right, but where's the book?"

"The usual thing--a woman," drawled the other. "Didn't you know? Some pretty coquette--the usual game--but the cost was heavier than usual--to him. It knocked it out of him, you know. I never saw a fellow so hard hit. That was five years ago, and he's never written a line since. Poor fellow!"

The knowledge that she had made a mistake five years ago was growing plainer to her.

At the end of the fortnight she met him and asked him to come and see her.

He smiled, and did not come.

Her eyes grew too big for the small, sad face.

She met him again, and asked him why he had not come.

He looked down into the sweet, true eyes, and his love weakened his will again.

He promised he would come. He came, and stayed five minutes. He looked at her sternly as he greeted her.

"Why do you want me?" he said, and watched the colour come and go in her cheeks with pitiless eyes.

"We--used--to be--friends," she whispered.

He laughed.

"Never! I never felt friendship for you," he said, "nor you for me. You forget. Five years is a long time, but I have a retentive memory. I forget nothing."

"Nor I," she murmured.

"No? Then why do you ask me to come and see you?"

She did not answer.

He looked round the pretty shaded room.

He laughed again.

"There is a difference," he said, "in you too."

She looked up quickly.

"I am the same," she said, knowing her own heart.

"Are you?" His eyes grew stormy. "Listen," he said, in a low, tense voice: "I am five years wiser than I was--then. I will not be a tool again. You have ruined my life--doesn't that content you? I would have staked my life on your goodness and purity--once. I dare not believe in any woman since you, with your angel's eyes, are false. I was full of ambition and hope once; you killed both. I tried to write--after. I could not. I shall never do anything now--never be anything. I despise myself, and it's not a nice feeling to live with. It makes men desperate. I love you still. Do you understand? I have loved you all the time, and I loathe myself for it." His voice changed. "You may triumph," he said, "but now you understand--I will not come again."

She stretched out her arms after him, but he was gone. And she knew now quite clearly that she had made a mistake five years ago.

For three weeks and a half she did not see him.

Then she saw him when he thought he was alone.

She studied his face with eyes that ached at what they saw. Then she went forward and touched him gently on his arm.

"Well?" he said.

"Will you come," she said in a low voice, "to see me----"

"Thanks, no."

His eyes rested bitterly on her rich gown.

It came across him again how wise she had been. Tied to him, she could not have been as she was now.

"I have something I must say to you," she said tremulously; "will you come--just this once?"

He looked down into the soft eyes with the beautiful light in them.

"I would rather not," he said gently.

The weariness in his eyes brought a sob to her throat.

"Ah, do!" she entreated; "I will never ask you again."

He looked at her with searching incredulity.

Then he turned away.

Just so had she looked five years ago.

She laid a small, despairing hand on his.

The iciness of it went to his heart.

"I will come," he said gently, and went away.

* * * * *

When he came, he wondered at the agitation in her small white face.

Her eyes were burning.

He waited silently.

She twisted her hands restlessly together, and he saw that she was trembling.

He drew a chair forward.

"Won't you sit down?" he said.

She sat down in a nest of softest cushions.

"I--I----" she began, and put up her hand to her throat, "I want to--to--to explain."

His face darkened.

She got up restlessly and faced him.

He thought of that time when they had faced each other before--in the shabby, glaring little room--and his face hardened.

"When you----" she began; "I thought it was for you--I had heard you say----"

"Are you going back five years?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Then would you mind _not_?" he said. "There can be no good in it, and to me at least it is not a pleasant subject."

"I must!" she burst out. "Oh! cannot you help me? It is so hard!"

She held out her hands pathetically.

A deep colour came into his tanned face, and he stood still, looking at her strangely.

"I think I will go," he said; "there is no use in prolonging this."

"Do you--love--me still?" she cried suddenly.

He turned on her in a white passion of anger.

"Not content yet?" he breathed. "What are you made of? Do you want me to show you all my degradation? Why? Oh, Kitty, Kitty, be merciful! Be true to those eyes of yours----"

He stopped abruptly and moved over to the door.

"Hugh, I love you!"

It was the veriest whisper, but it stayed his steps, and brought a great light leaping to his eyes.

The light died down.

"It is too late!" he said, and turned away.

"Hugh, listen--I loved you always--five years ago. It was for your sake----"

He turned again.

"Kitty?" he said uncertainly.

She went on bravely, always heroic through her love.

"I was poor--insignificant; you were ambitious--clever. I had heard your longings after greatness. Hugh, how could you travel into those wild countries with me? I knew you would give it up, and how could I bear that? To be a drag, a hindrance to you! And in the coming years I thought you would regret---- Hugh, you were poor, too, though not so poor as I. I did it for you--it nearly killed me, Hugh. I was ill after, but it was for you!"

Her voice died away into silence.

He stood very still, and his face was white and bloodless.

But in his eyes there was a great reverence.

"Forgive me!" he said.

She smiled softly.

"Oh, yes," she said.

The cynicism had gone from his face, and the hardness and bitterness too.

She looked at him wistfully. He turned away from her eyes and hid his face in his hands.

"It was a mistake," he said, slowly, dully.

"Yes."

Still she waited.

He looked up, and she strove to read his face in vain.

Sad it was, and set, and yet there was a light there too.

He took her hands gently in his.

"Kathleen," he said earnestly, "God knows what I think of you. I can work now. Good-bye, dear."

She raised her eyes to his--mystified and anxious.

He answered them, very gently, but with a firmness there was no gainsaying.

"You are famous," he said; "when I have made a name I will come to you. Will you wait, Kitty?"

"For ever, Hugh," she answered, understanding him so well that that was all she said.

He bent and kissed her hands.

* * * * *

She knelt at the side of his bed, heedless of the presence of the nurse at the other end of the room, and her tears wetted his hand. The right hand and arm were swathed in bandages.

He smiled sadly as he looked at her.

"I am a failure," he said.

"Ah, no, no! All England is ringing with your name. Hugh"--she raised a face all alight with a proud joy--"you are famous now!"

A little flush rose to his white face.

"Pshaw!" he said, "rescuing a woman and a few children from being burnt to death. Anyone would have done it."

"Ah, no, Hugh! Brave men shrank from that awful sea and burning ship!"

He was silent, looking at his bandaged hand.

"I must learn to write with my left hand," he said.

She bent nearer.

"Let me write for you," she whispered; "let me finish your book, Hugh, while you dictate it to me. I do not sing now in public, you know."

"Yes, I know."

He drew her closer to him and rested his cheek against her soft hair.

"I said I would not come to you till I had made a name," he said. "I am a wreck now! I shall be a wreck for a long while----"

"Ah, dear, but you are famous!" she interposed lovingly.

He sighed.

"I cannot do without you any longer, Kitty. I am beaten at last. Will you take a wreck?"

"I will take _you_, Hugh, a famous----"

"A famous wreck," he finished with a smile.

THE PULPIT MANNER

CHARACTERISTIC GESTURES OF GREAT PREACHERS.

=By F. M. Holmes.=

First let us look at Dr. Joseph Parker. His sermons are constantly attended by ministers of all denominations, including clergymen of the Church of England; and no stronger testimony, we take it, could be given to a man's extraordinary preaching power than that year after year he continually attracts other preachers.

Dr. Parker, it is almost needless to explain, is the eminent Congregational minister of the City Temple in London, and he occupies the unique position of having maintained for thirty years a noonday service every Thursday in addition to his usual Sunday services. To this Thursday service come persons from the ends of the earth, and ministers and laymen of various religious persuasions. On one occasion the sittings of a conference belonging to one of the minor Methodist bodies seemed seriously imperilled because so many of the delegates desired to go and hear Dr. Parker.

What is the secret of his widely attractive power? The answer comes in a word--he is intensely dramatic. We do not mean theatrical. He chooses a clear message to deliver, and that message--that paramount thought--is driven home to his hearers in a manner that forces itself upon every mind, no matter how reluctant. He uses short, pithy sentences, and heightens and emphasises their effect by suitable modulations of voice, by deliberate or rapid utterance as the words may require, and by vigorous and appropriate gesture. He speaks only the very pith and point of what he has to say, and then says it in the clearest and most suitably effective manner that he can possibly command. It is the thing itself we hear, rather than talk or argument all round and about it.

Thus, on one occasion, his theme was found in the text, "Jesus in the midst." "Where is the midst?" he asked in a clear and striking, sonorous voice that commanded attention at once. These were his opening words, and after a pause he proceeded in the same manner and in similar short, striking sentences to point to different ideas of "the midst," and to declare that Christ was, or should be, in the midst of the literature, science, philosophy, and business of the day. Unless ministers preached Christ, said he, they had better be silent.

There is nothing new in this, you will say. No doubt Dr. Parker would tell you that he does not wish to preach anything new; but no one can watch him critically without concluding that he constantly studies not only what he shall say, but how he shall say it in the most striking and effective manner.

As a dramatic preacher, we might also instance the Rev. J. H. Jowett, who has succeeded the late Dr. Dale at Carr's Lane Congregational Church, Birmingham. To his Oxford scholarship Mr. Jowett has united an assiduous cultivation of a fine voice and vigorous yet graceful and suitable gesture, which render him a most striking and fascinating preacher.

But turning now to other styles, if Dr. Parker is one of the most dramatic, Dr. Boyd Carpenter, the learned Bishop of Ripon, is one of the most eloquent of preachers. He is also one of the most rapid. He seems so fully charged with his subject that the words pour from his lips like a torrent; his body turns first to one side and then to the other, and anon leans forward in front, as though propelled by the energy of the thought within. His hand is often held up before him with the index finger pointing, as though to lead his audience on to the next thought, and to prevent their interest or attention from flagging. But, rapid and fluent as he is, it must not be thought that he is superficial; on the contrary, there is every evidence that the discourse is well thought out, and based on a solid framework of reason, while the language is eloquent and rhetorical. And it is, as it were, to mark the network of logical deduction within the words that the index finger is brought so fully into play. We judge that his voice is naturally somewhat thin and poor, but by careful use and perhaps assiduous cultivation, and by the most beautifully clear articulation, Dr. Boyd Carpenter can make himself heard in St. Paul's with what appears to be perfect ease. There is no straining of the voice and no shouting; but in a quiet though forcible manner he sends his voice round the huge building. Further, it has been pointed out to me that he will not commence his discourse until the congregation have settled themselves down into absolute quietness, and all the rustling of dresses, and coughing, and fidgeting are stilled. Under these circumstances his voice would, of course, carry far better in a large church.

Somewhat similar in manner is Canon Barker, of Marylebone, who, in the energetic expression of the thought with which he seems surcharged, bends forward sometimes so deeply towards the congregation as to give, the impression that he is about to dive out of the pulpit. But his style is that of the special pleader, the advocate and the debater; it is as though he desires to argue out everything to its logical conclusion, rather than to sway or move his audience by eloquence and emotional appeals.

Dean Lefroy of Norwich is also a debater; perhaps, a more keen debater than Canon Barker, and he is also a rhetorician. He delights to preach a strongly evangelical "Gospel" sermon, and to embellish it with rhetoric and declaim it with passionate earnestness. It is evident he thoroughly believes in his theme, he seeks to impress it on his audience by vigorous, earnest, passionate utterance, in which his energetic gestures are often of the most decided character. A curious characteristic of his preaching has been related to me by a friend. "You cannot listen to Lefroy for five minutes," said he, "without violently taking sides either for or against him. You are either intensely in favour of him or find yourself becoming almost vehemently opposed"--a testimony, we take it that the Dean is a decided, downright, assertive and aggressive preacher rather than persuasive and emotional. He has instituted a Nave service at Norwich Cathedral, at which he often preaches himself, and attracts enormous congregations.

Still continuing to glance at those whom we may call rapid and fluent preachers, Prebendary Webb-Peploe comes to mind. He is not so energetic as some others, but the rapidity of his utterance, the fluency of his expression, and his great command of language, would rival that of almost any speaker. He and many others would probably utter three times as many words in a given time as Dr. Parker or Archdeacon Sinclair.

The latter is slow, deliberate, and dignified in his utterances, rarely using gesture and affecting a grave and somewhat sonorous voice; but the Archdeacon's sermons are always most carefully prepared, and indicate considerable study and research.

Among the grave and sedate preachers we might also place Dr. John Watson ("Ian Maclaren"), of Sefton Park Presbyterian Church, Liverpool; his sermons are full of thought, and, as might be expected, exhibit an excellent literary finish.

Now, if we take Archdeacon Sinclair and Dr. John Watson as examples of more deliberate and sedate preachers, we may regard the Rev. John McNeil, the well-known Presbyterian minister, as an instance of the colloquial preacher.

Not that his voice is low-pitched, as used in conversation. Mr. McNeil has done what few preachers could physically undertake: he has preached twice a day for a fortnight in the Albert Hall at Kensington, the largest hall in London, and capable of holding about ten thousand persons; and he has repeatedly filled the huge Agricultural Hall at Islington, numbers being turned away from lack of room. His voice, indeed, seems capable of filling the largest hall without effort. But his style is easy, unaffected, conversational, though sometimes, with both arms outstretched, he bursts forth into loud and impassioned appeals. There is no doubt a large section of the public who like this easy and colloquial style, especially if it come quite naturally to the speaker.

And now another celebrated figure rises on the scene, the eminent Baptist minister, Dr. McLaren of Manchester. Refined, scholarly, brimming over with knowledge, and a master of beautiful illustration, there is no doubt that he takes rank as one of the very greatest preachers of the day. Like other great speakers, he has evidently studied the art of preaching.

At a meeting at the Holborn Restaurant to celebrate his ministerial jubilee in April, 1896, he said he had determined, at the outset of his career, to concentrate his mind on the work of the ministry and not fritter away his energies over many minor engagements. He had always endeavoured to make his ministry one of Gospel exposition; he had preached Christ because he believed that men needed redemption, and he had preached without doubts and hesitations. It was Thomas Binney who had taught him how to preach.

Undoubtedly Dr. McLaren has succeeded in his aim as an expositor of the Scriptures, for that is regarded as one of his chief characteristics. A favourite gesture of Dr. McLaren's--at all events in his earlier days--was to squeeze up a handkerchief, no doubt quite unconsciously, in his right hand by the nervous energy he was putting forth in his discourse, and then suddenly his hand would dart out to mark some emphatic passage as though he were about to throw the handkerchief at the congregation; but needless to add the handkerchief was never thrown.

Like Dr. McLaren, Dr. Whyte, of Free St. George's, Edinburgh, has a great command of beautiful and striking illustrations. "He is the most wonderful preacher in Scotland," declared an enthusiastic Scot to me on one occasion. "Mr. Gladstone used often to hear him, and Lord Rosebery does now." Dr. Whyte makes great use of the imagination in his discourses and employs frequent gestures, but graceful, emphatic and always to suit the action to the word and the word to the action. "One illustration," said a gentleman, "I remember some time ago. Dr. Whyte was preaching about tribulation, and he showed that the word came from _tribulum_, which is a Latin name for a roller or sledge for thrashing out corn, and in the same way tribulation sifted men as wheat." How like a platitude this may sound when summarised down to a line; but the point is that the idea of the beneficial purpose of tribulation had been so firmly fixed in the hearer's mind that he remembered it, and perchance in some dark hour it had been to him a "cup of strength in some great agony." Is not that, after all, one of the great aims and one of the great tests of good speaking--to fix some idea, some truth firmly in the hearer's mind so that it is never forgotten?

As a robust, manly preacher few, if any, we suspect, can surpass Dean Hole of Rochester. He has a tall, commanding presence--he is over six feet high--a bright, animated countenance, and a most genial manner. When some years ago he held the living of Caunton, Notts, he used to journey periodically to Liverpool, where his midday addresses to commercial men were most successful and exercised great influence. He does not employ much gesture, but his fine voice, sparkling eye and manly, straightforward utterances, based on reason and logic, always command deep attention.

His appeal is rather to reason than to the emotions, and by way of contrast we may glance at Canon Wilberforce, who is fluent and fervent, and affords one of the best examples of the emotional preacher. It would seem as though he set himself to arouse and stir up all the feelings of his congregation and lead them into what he conceives to be the right channel. Often choosing most unusual texts, he can yet make direct and pointed appeals from the pulpit, touching the greatest hopes and deepest trusts of human nature, and yet can employ as illustrations the greatest events and the newest discoveries of the day. He uses but little gesture, in this respect being somewhat different from the eminent Wesleyan, the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes, who might also be classed as an emotional--we had almost said passionate--preacher. In fluency and fervour he is probably surpassed by none. Possessed of a remarkably clear, vibrating, and penetrating voice, which seems as though it could thrill through any building, however large, there is no chance of anyone dozing when he is in the pulpit. When pleading some cause or denouncing some wrong, his feelings seem to get the better of him, and he slashes away with his voice in a perfect hurricane of verbal blows.

Quite as emotional and quite as fluent is Dr. Clifford of Westbourne Park Baptist Church. His command of language is extraordinary, and with a mind less clear and well-regulated this great fluency might prove a snare; but his discourses are always remarkably well-arranged, his "points" are clear, and his meanings driven home with remarkable emphasis. His congregations are immense, and his hearers are devoted to him. His gestures often follow his words, and one--probably quite unconscious--is, it must be confessed, not graceful, even if forcible: it is a drawing back of his arms, and then shooting them out both together as if appealing to the people. His voice is exceptionally clear, penetrating, and resonant; and in all very popular preachers much is due to the voice.

The Bishop of Stepney, who may be described as bearing all the characteristics of the highly cultured Oxford man, has in addition a deeply sympathetic musical voice. He does not use much gesture, but such as he does employ is well suited to the words, while his illustrations are often drawn from his social and religious work in the East End. He used frequently to preach in Victoria Park, where he has readily acknowledged his best supporters were Nonconformists.

Another eminent preacher whom we may also describe as exhibiting all the characteristics of Oxford culture is Dr. Horton of Lyndhurst Road Congregational Church, Hampstead. Possessed, like the Bishop of Stepney, of a remarkably sympathetic voice, he modulates and varies it to suit the subject and the words, and his gesture, never redundant, has lately been reduced almost to extinction. At the sermon which he preached before the Congregational Union at its autumnal assembly at Birmingham in 1897, his style was almost severely quiet, but the effect of his thrilling voice and sometimes awesome whispered tones, his polished literary language, and his intense earnestness--as he declared that the ideal Christian must be in constant touch with God, and yet in constant touch with men--was very great, and appealed both to reason and emotion. Indeed, both of these find their place in his sermons. Dr. Horton has mastered the art of always being interesting, no matter what his theme; and it would seem as though in his discourses he makes an effort to really interest and to reach all sorts and conditions of men.

Another Congregational minister who exhibits much of the Oxford manner is the Rev. Silvester Horne, of Kensington; but, in addition, he seems possessed of a fiery zeal and fervent enthusiasm that will, it is feared, wear him out physically before his day is fully spent, unless he carefully husbands his nervous energy. Already, although a young man, he has had to take rest for a whole year because of ill-health. That inner fire, that mental energy, that disciplined enthusiasm, which light up his face so brilliantly and animate his suitable and graceful gesture, are far too precious a possession to be quenched too quickly; but there are few or none of the younger preachers of the day who have promise of a more brilliant future.

And now a word in conclusion for one who is perhaps the greatest philosophical preacher of the time--Dr. Fairbairn of Mansfield College at Oxford. His memory is marvellous, his power of choice and accurate verbal expression is wonderful; he can speak for hours without a note, and though sometimes a sentence should appear involved and complicated, it will finish admirably, and, if read in a verbatim report afterwards, will have all the finish of a literary production wrought out in the quiet of the study. He uses but little gesture, an occasional opening out of hands and arms, as though to present and lay before the audience the thought which he is uttering, seems nearly all. In fact, it would appear that he is so absorbed in the abstract thought, the argument, the philosophy he is working out before you, that he thinks nothing of the manner in which he utters it.

We do not pretend to have exhausted the list of famous preachers, or even to have glanced at all the different types; but these will be sufficient to indicate the variety that prevails, and to show that there is an art of preaching which, like other arts, needs to be assiduously cultivated, and well repays those who intelligently do so.

A MOTHER'S BIBLE.

A pathetic incident occurred some years ago in connection with one of our wars abroad. A youth who had been wounded, and who died in the field hospital, clutched in his last hours an old worn copy of the Bible, on the flyleaf of which were inscribed these touching lines:--

TO MY BOY.

Remember, love, who gave you this, When other days shall come, When she who had thy earliest kiss Sleeps in her narrow home. Remember! 'twas a mother gave The gift to one she'd die to save.

A mother sought a pledge of love, The holiest, for her son; And from the gift of God above She chose a godly one-- She chose for her beloved boy The source of light and life and joy.

And bade him keep the gift, that when The parting hour should come They might have hope, and meet again In an eternal home: She said his faith in that should be Sweet incense to her memory.

And should the scoffer in his pride Laugh his fond faith to scorn, And bid him cast the pledge aside Which he from youth had borne-- She bade him pause and ask his breast If he or she had loved him best.

A mother's blessing on her son Goes with this holy thing, The love that would retain the one Must to the other cling. Remember! 'tis no idle toy, Thy mother's gift! Remember, boy!

ROGER PETTINGDALE

_A RUSTIC LOVE-STORY._

By H. A. Davies.

Across the fields from the church--through the clover meadow first, into the broad wheat-field next, and thence over the pasture lands, all yellow with the glint of buttercups--you will come to the Pettingdale farm. A thrill and a song and an aching went through my blood all together when I looked on the block of buildings the other day. How sweet-and-bitter is remembrance; how musical to the heart, and yet how sad with yearning! For the sight of that rugged old chimney standing square and grim and familiar upon the grey roof of the house; the red-tiled barns clustering behind, plain and prosperous; the sweep of the waving corn-fields towards the setting sun; caused my heart to surge with swift memories, long since buried and forgotten beneath the stress of life. How peaceful were the old days amidst these very fields! When the heart is young, ah! then's the time for music; and what echoes of far-off melodies--songs of old summers past and gone--does the scene awaken! There's the orchard where I spent such rare hours. Here are the hedges where we went a-nutting. Yonder is the oak-tree which we used to climb, Frank Pettingdale and I. It is still the same sturdy tree, keeping gnarled and knotted guard over the same creaking gateway, just as in the old days!

Wherever my eyes fell there were thorns and roses for the heart all in one moment. It was in the old upland field that Clara Pettingdale and I as children used to wander, hand in hand, amongst the buttercups. She has long slept, poor Clara, in that corner of the churchyard where lie generations of Pettingdales past and gone--a long line of sturdy yeomen.

The full light of the sun falls upon the courtyard of the farmhouse. It has a broad frontage, long and low and quaint, with irregular gables and overhanging eaves and deep, mullioned windows. The house runs queerly on two sides of the courtyard, one wing being at right angles to the other. It is beautifully clean and prim, with its whitewashed walls, its freshly painted woodwork, and its geraniums growing in green boxes on every window-sill. On the third side of the yard run the granary and the cider-house; while the fourth, save for an ivy-covered wall, which gives way to the entrance gates in one corner, is open to the gentle vista of countryside which stretches away before the house. What a pleasant old courtyard it is--so cool in the summer that the panting dogs love to throw themselves upon its stones; so sheltered in winter that the blustering nor'-easters touch it not; so prosperous-looking always, with its well-kept flags laid from end to end, as level and smooth as a billiard-table, and as spotless as the floor of the farm kitchen. How the polished milk-cans glisten and blink upon the wall! How the white sills of the old-fashioned windows gleam in the sunlight! The whole place seems to breathe of scouring and buckets, and scrubbing brushes and vigorous arms. Every morning the yard is washed down by the house-boy (it used to be Elijah in my day, but he is now a bearded man, and labours outside, and a young Ezra is the present knight of the bucket); every morning the cans are scoured and the tubs are scrubbed, and the step before the door is free-stoned, and the flowers are watered, and the house seems to smile a glistening, watery smile, as though it had just lifted its head from its morning dip to bid you the time of day. There was ever a charm to me about Pettingdale and its paved courtyard. I mind me well what a brave and romantic sound to my young ears was that of the horse's hoofs ringing and clamping upon the stones as he was brought up to the door on market days with the high yellow dogcart behind him; or the clatter of the wheels across the yard as Roger Pettingdale drove out through the broad gateway, a fine old figure with his white hair, and his aquiline nose, and his broad, well-set shoulders.

He is still outwardly the same. One could hardly detect a single point of change in him, save that his face is more furrowed and his eyes deeper set. His hair went snow-white early in life. Generations of Pettingdales have been subject to the same peculiarity. Thus it is that the long step from forty to sixty-five has wrought little difference in Roger Pettingdale. His body is as erect, his step as firm, his voice as sonorous as ever. He was ever a well-known figure at all the county markets and agricultural meetings, and it might be twenty-five years agone for all the change that one can see in him. Among other men he was always noticeable, with his tall figure, his white hair, his clean-shaven, well-cut face, and that wide-rimmed silk hat which he always affected. As he moved amongst the crowd I have heard men say, "Who is that?" and others answer, "Don't you know him? Why, surely everybody knows _him_? He's Roger Pettingdale."

He is elected on all the local bodies. Thus he is a guardian of the poor, a member of the School Board, vice-chairman of the County Council, and the people's churchwarden at the parish church. There is no man amongst all those he meets in these capacities whose words are listened to with more respect. That solid weight, that hallmark of sound judgment which always attends upon sheer common-sense, is apparent in every opinion he utters. He forms his judgments first, and speaks afterwards. While other men are impulsively throwing themselves into useless controversy on this or that vexed question, Roger Pettingdale is silently weighing the _pros_ and _cons_ of the matter in his own mind; and when he speaks there is usually nothing more to be said. He chops no logic; he simply argues with the sledge-hammer of common-sense, backed up by the blunt, uncompromising sincerity of an honest and fair-dealing mind. His tolerance, his breadth of vision, his power of seeing the other side of the question, his scorn of all shams and pretences, have made his name a password for integrity and sound judgment. "You will always get a fair hearing from Roger Pettingdale," people say. "Does Roger Pettingdale think so? Oh, then, there must be something in it."

In his home life, in the control of his farm, in his own daily affairs, there is the same straightforwardness, the same sincerity, the same well-balanced judgment and acumen. "There never was a year, as I remember, when we didn't have plenty of hay to begin conditioning on," said one of his labourers the other day. "Now, at the next farm they've never got enough." That is only a small instance of the perfection of method which marks every department of the prosperous farm.

At home he is essentially a plain man, this sturdy farmer. There is no nonsense about him, although he can claim blood with one of the oldest families in the county. Yet he has a proper pride, in a manly, direct kind of way, as you shall see. He has had four children, two boys and two girls, in giving birth to the youngest of whom his wife died. James, the eldest, is his right hand in the farm management, and will some day be head of the family, as the Pettingdales have succeeded, son to father, for generations out of mind. Mary, the second, you shall hear more of anon. Frank, the third, my old playmate, early in life took the fancy that he would like to be a soldier. Roger Pettingdale has ever been a wise and a tolerant father, studying well the nature of each of his children. He unerringly knew Frank's proud and stubborn character.

"You want to be a soldier?" he said. "Well, I could have wished it otherwise, Frank. It would have been a pleasure to me to see you settle down on the farm. But we will not argue the point. Let it stand for twelve months, and then talk to me about it."

Twelve months did not change Frank's resolve. When he mentioned it again, a drawn look passed over Roger Pettingdale's face for a moment--a look of keen pain--for he loved his children. Then he drew himself up to his full height.

"You are still of the same mind, Frank! Then I have nothing more to say. I am not going to attempt to dictate to you what your calling should be. You have to live your own life, and as you make your bed you must lie on it. Remember that, my lad. If you decide to go as a soldier, you shall go in a proper fashion, lad. You shall have your commission. No son of mine shall enter the ranks."

And have his commission Frank did. I looked at the tablet in the old church the other day with a surging heart. It is a brass tablet, the lettering of which has been recently renovated.

TO THE MEMORY OF LIEUTENANT FRANK PETTINGDALE, WHO FELL IN ACTION IN THE BATTLE OF TEL-EL-KEBIR.

That was all. There was no vainglorious recounting of the brave deed in the performance of which Frank was cut down. He fell "in action." That was all. It was Roger Pettingdale all over--simple and direct and manly. And were not the laconic words far more eloquent than all the ornate elegiacs that poets might have written, just as Roger Pettingdale's silent grief when the news reached him was far more eloquent than all the passionate outbursts of frenzied sorrow that one could conceive?

The fourth child, Clara, as I have already said, sleeps in the churchyard. She died when she was a fair-haired girl of ten--as bright and promising a maiden as one could wish to see. But she was ever fragile, like her mother, and suddenly she faded away, leaving a great gap in the home life at the Pettingdale farm.

As to Mary, the second child, she was nineteen years of age, and newly returned from school, when Edward Leigh, the son of old Squire Leigh, of the Hall, came home from his travels round the world. These two, who had only distantly known each other as children, met for the first time after many years--she a sweet-looking, fresh-coloured girl, in the first blush of womanhood; and he a manly, well-set young fellow with a pleasant, sincere face and straightforward blue eyes. It was the old story! Twang goes the bow of the roguish little archer, and to some heart or another the world all at once becomes rose-colour. The old story! They saw each other on a Sunday morning across the church. She, sitting in the Pettingdale pew, mentally noted that there was a young man at the Squire's side who could be no other than his newly returned son; and he, from his corner underneath the dingy, ponderous coat-of-arms of the Leigh family, looked upon her in her simple dress of white. The sun, striking through the window to her right, glinted upon her brown hair, which always curled so prettily about her forehead. He thought, as he looked, that she was the sweetest, daintiest maiden he had ever seen, and he fell in love with her.

He made no secret of his passion. Beating about the bush was entirely foreign to Edward Leigh. The choleric old Squire went off into a fit of apoplectic rage when he heard how things stood. The veins swelled in his forehead, and that pugnacious under-lip of his stood out and drew itself over the upper lip and the teeth with a tight grip. But Edward had all the old Leigh blood in him. "I love her, father," he said quietly, looking the Squire straight in the face, and the old man's heart sank within him as he met the steady glance of those blue eyes. Fits of passion, threats, fiery denunciations--they were all of no avail. Edward was never once other than respectful. He would stand with shoulders squared and head uplifted, bearing the storm in perfect calm and silence, and then would look his father in the face and say--"Father, I love her"; and the Squire would clench his fist and march to and fro, furiously stamping his feet upon the floor.

In one culminating fit of choleric rage the Squire rode over to the farm. He found Roger Pettingdale in the corn-field, looking at the growing wheat.

"Look here, Pettingdale," he burst forth fiercely. "This nonsense must be stopped. Are you an idiot, that you cannot see what is going on, or are you in the scheme to entrap my----"

Roger Pettingdale turned round upon him.

"I beg your pardon, Squire Leigh?" he said quietly, as one who had not heard aright.

"Tut! Nonsense!" retorted the Squire. "Don't 'beg-your-pardon' me! You know full well what I mean. Are you blind? I say it must be stopped! You know full well that that precious son of mine has gone stark mad over that chit of a girl of yours!"

"And what of that, Squire Leigh?" replied Roger Pettingdale, drawing himself to his full height and looking at the Squire from underneath his heavy eyebrows. "If that precious son of yours has gone stark mad over my daughter, what of that?"

"Why, this," thundered the Squire: "that it must be stopped!"

"Very well, why don't you stop it?" replied Roger Pettingdale.

The retort, perfectly cool and natural, laid bare all the Squire's impotence at one stroke, and drove him well-nigh to frenzy. His eyes shot fire, and those veins in his forehead swelled as though they would burst.

"It is not my daughter who is coming to the Hall after your son," Roger Pettingdale went on. "It is your son who is coming here after my daughter. You seem to forget that point. You say it must be stopped. And I repeat--Why don't you stop it?"

"It is as I thought," shouted the enraged Squire. "You are all in it--all of you. All in the scheme to entrap him! A pretty plot, don't you call it, for a man who poses as a Christian?"

In a blind access of fury he took a step forward and raised his riding-whip. And then his shaking arm fell to his side, for Roger Pettingdale had laid a hand upon his shoulder, and was confronting him with grave, kindly, pitying eyes.

"You are in anger, Squire Leigh," he said, with simple dignity, "else I should take your words as an insult. Be sure that the Pettingdales have not fallen so low, nor their womenkind either, that they need to trap the son of Squire Leigh. But I tell you this, as man to man: if your son truly loves my daughter, and if she loves him in return, I will put no bar before my child's happiness; no, not for you, nor for all the Leighs in the world. We come of as good a stock as you, Squire! Remember that! More money and more land maybe you have--but not more pride of family. I care naught for your money or your land. Thank God! I have prospered beyond all expectation. And I tell you again, straight to your face, if your son comes to me and asks for my daughter's hand, and I find it is for her happiness, I shall say 'Yes.'"

"I shall disinherit him!" burst forth the Squire; "he shall not have a penny--not a brass farthing!"

"I shall tell him," continued Roger Pettingdale, "that if he would win my daughter, he must first make a position for himself in the world, independently of aught you can do for or against him; and that shall be the test of his sincerity."

Then he turned away, and the Squire, his face livid with passion, marched off, savagely cutting at the wheat-ears with his riding-whip. And when he mounted his horse at the corner of the field, he dug his spurs so viciously into her that she bounded and reared, and almost threw him.

Well, the long and short of it was that Edward Leigh was not found wanting in the test which was imposed upon him.

"You are quite right, sir," he said to Roger Pettingdale; "the condition is a reasonable one. I ask for nothing more than the chance of proving that I am in earnest."

He went to London, studied under his father's old college friend, John Wetherell, the well-known Queen's Counsel, and in five years was making fair headway in the courts as a barrister. And the strange part of it was that the choleric old Squire--who has a good heart underneath his rough exterior--seeing his son's name in the papers from time to time, felt his paternal pride rising within him despite his stubborn resentment. Perhaps, too, he felt lonely in his old age. At all events, he went over to the farm one day, and asked to see Mary.

"I shall fight against it no longer, my dear," he said, holding out his hand. "The lad has proved his grit, and the woman who can call forth such steady love in a man is more than worthy of being mistress of the Hall. I am an old man, and have no time left for bitternesses. Forgive me, and you will find me as staunch in friendship as you have found me frank in enmity."

Mary is now Mary Leigh, of Leigh Hall, and a sweeter, gentler, more winsome mistress you could not find in the whole land. You may often see the old Squire leaning upon her shoulder--a bent, white-haired figure--as they walk in the grounds.

* * * * *

Among all the seasons of the year, I think there is none that Roger Pettingdale loves so well as the time of harvest. You may see him standing at the gateway, looking in meditation down the long shimmer and sheen of the golden wheat-field as the wind ripples over it.

"I love to gaze at fields white with corn," he said to me once. "They seem to breathe rich promises of that full fruition to which our own lives shall come if we live them well and uprightly."

At the last harvest thanksgiving service in the village church I was present for the sake of old times, and from my place behind Roger Pettingdale I saw him lost in meditation, with eyes fixed upon the chancel window. And when he stood up to sing he was still rapt in thought; but suddenly he joined in the sweet old hymn so lustily and with such a full heart that it did me good to hear him.

"The valleys stand so thick with corn That even they are singing."

THE ART OF READING.

By the Ven. Archdeacon Diggle, M.A.

Reading aloud is more commonly regarded as an accomplishment than an art. In truth, it is both. It is an art in that it cannot be left to its own guidance, but requires both an acquaintance with rules and familiarity with their practice to bring it to perfection. It is an accomplishment in that it is a means of completing our equipment for happy social life. Good reading yields not only profit but pleasure to others. It is one means of throwing brightness into home-life to gather the children together and read really well to them. And what a sweet delight it is in the ward of a hospital, or among the inmates of a workhouse, or by the bedside of some dearly loved invalid, to be able, by reading in soft, gentle, refreshing tones, to charm away the monotony and the weariness, perhaps for awhile to relieve even the pain, of the lonely and the suffering! We might shed sunshine into the darkness of many a life if, instead of spending our leisure hours in _ennui_ on ourselves, we devoted them to reading aloud to others.

Reading aloud is good for ourselves both physically and morally. It is good morally, for if we never read anything unfit for reading aloud we shall not be likely to read anything morally deteriorating. And physically, reading aloud is a benignant exercise. It widens the chest, opens the lungs, strengthens the throat, and does good to all the breathing organs. It is a mistake to suppose that using the voice weakens it. Abuse or misuse of the vocal organs, as of any other organs, injures them; but by proper use and exercise they are strengthened and improved. Speakers and preachers have bad throats not because they use their throat too much, but because they use it badly. They force and torment it, instead of training it to natural action and giving it free, full play. And who shall blame them? At school they were taught to spell and mind their stops; but how to breathe and manage the voice when reading, they probably were not taught a single rule. In many instances teachers themselves are wholly ignorant of the art and therefore incapable of teaching it. And so it comes to pass that, unless either outward circumstance or innate common-sense turn our attention in later life to the management of the vocal organs, we never learn to read aloud without weariness and with pleasure. It is mainly through lack of early training that, of all useful and delightful accomplishments, the art of reading aloud is one of the least practised and most rare.

Yet it is an art which, in some degree, may be acquired by the majority of people; very many could, by a little training and perseverance, even excel in it. Of course, the art admits of many degrees of excellence. But without reaching the splendid summits of the art, attainable only by the highly gifted few, ordinary persons may learn to read sufficiently well to gratify both themselves and others, if they will take pains to learn and practise a few simple rules.

The first requirement is to master the physics of the art: to learn to breathe in through the nostrils and out through the mouth, never to speak on an inflowing breath, quickly to fill the lungs and slowly to empty them, never to gasp or strain after sound, not to attempt the higher notes until the lower have been completely mastered, to rely more on the lower than the higher notes, to teach the lips and front portion of the mouth to do their fair share of work equally with the larynx and the vocal cords. A moustache is an impediment to easy and distinct reading. It hinders the air from passing in free, full flow up the nostrils, and it troubles the waves of sound as they issue from the mouth; causing indistinctness, more or less flat and thick, in enunciation.

Clearness of enunciation ranks next in importance after easy, natural, flexible production of voice, and largely depends on it, for there can be no clear, crisp, distinct enunciation of words, unless the tools by which words are made, viz. the organs of voice, are kept sharp and well burnished. Moreover, for the attainment of limpid and finely articulated enunciation careful training is required both in the melody and modulation of sounds.

Precision and beauty of enunciation are much assisted by habitual practice of the graduated series of all the tones from the keynote to its octave. Do not sing when you are reading, but, in order to read well, first learn to sing; otherwise your reading will be flat and monotonous, without light and shade, instead of being fresh, richly modulated, and melodious.

The next requirement of good reading is to learn the relative value of the letters, and the right handling of the syllables, of which words are composed.

This study is both interesting and attractive, for, as Plato observes, letters themselves have a clear significance. The letter _r_ is expressive of motion, the letters _d_ and _t_ of binding and rest, the letter _l_ of smoothness, _n_ of inwardness, the letter _e_ of length and the letter _o_ of roundness.[2] Letters run in families, and each family has its own characteristic significance of sound. Some letters belong to the lips, others to the throat, others employ the whole mouth. Vowels and final consonants are the letters which demand most care and support in good reading. For the most part, vowels should be rich and full, and the final consonant well sustained.

[2] _Cf._ Jowett's Plato, I. 311.

If letters in themselves are expressive and significant, collocations of letters in syllables and words are clearly more significant still. "By various degrees of strength or weakness, emphasis or pitch, length or shortness, they become the natural expressions both of the stronger and the finer parts of human feeling and thought." To read well, therefore, it is necessary to give intelligent and ready heed to the relative weight of words, to notice whether consonants are massed together to increase their density, or vowels are freely interspersed to leaven and make them light. True enunciation largely depends on a careful study of the natural formation of words and a right appreciation of the proportionate value of their several syllables.

Reading, however, is frequently spoiled by pedantry and exaggerated minuteness. In seeking to avoid slovenliness readers often fall into foppery. Good reading goes at an easy pace, it is neither too fast nor too slow; it neither counts the letters nor omits them, neither jumbles syllables together nor anatomises words. The good reader reads so that intelligent listeners can spell his words, but he does not read as if spelling them himself. He avoids the extremes both of negligence and nicety, and constantly remembers that whatever is overdone is badly done. Avoid ostentation. No rule in reading is more fundamental than this.

Near akin to ostentation is the taint of false and histrionic emphasis. Colourless reading, bad though it be, is better than tawdry reading. Especially in all reading of a religious or sacred character should affectation and dramatic artifices be reverently avoided.

To read the Bible in church as if playing a part on the stage is as inappropriate and irreligious as to read like one in haste to catch a train.

Each kind of subject demands its own proper style in reading. Prose should not be read like poetry; nor all kinds either of prose or poetry alike. As in writing, each species should be dressed in language from its own wardrobe; so in reading, each several kind should receive its own appropriate tone, and travel at its own appropriate speed. To read everything alike is to read nothing--or at most only one thing--well.

Great authors are by no means invariably good readers, even of their own productions. Lord Tennyson read some of his own glorious poems beautifully; but others he read either droningly or with too much singsong. Dickens read his own works with wonderful power and realisation. Wordsworth read his own verse admirably; but we are told that neither Coleridge nor Southey could read verse well: "They read as if crying or wailing lugubriously."

Reading, therefore, is an art which doubtless requires, for the attainment of excellence, some degree of histrionic gifts--imagination, imitation, fervour, and passion.

Similarly with oratory and authorship. Both these arts are distinct from that of reading; as each of these again is distinct from the other.

It is curious, indeed, how few among great authors are great orators; or, among great orators, great authors. The gifts which tell in writing--condensation, terseness, finish--are not the gifts which tell most in speaking. In speaking, the essentials are clearness of enunciation, sympathy with the audience, copiousness of illustration, directness of statement, uninvolved reasoning. The merits which impart value to a book--wealth of fact, niceness in balancing opposing considerations, delicacy of assertion, depth and sweep of argument--may easily become ineffective in the delivery of a speech. Hence, therefore, whereas a good speaker is occasionally a good writer, owing to his rare combination of different orders of talent, it more frequently happens that the one set of talents is given to one man to enrich them in seclusion, and the other to another man to use them with publicity.

In like manner with reading; it is an art by itself. It is natural to suppose that no one could possibly read an author's works so well as the author's self, because no one can understand them so intimately as their own creator. Yet experience proves this to be not the case; and for a reason which at first sight is not wholly apparent. It is just because they are his own that, as a rule, he cannot read them well. He may have a richly cultivated voice, clear enunciation, a varied power of modulation; he may even be able to read the works of others well, yet be a failure in reading what he himself has written. Why is this? Partly, perhaps, it is due to an unavoidable self-consciousness in reading his own works; and self-consciousness is the ruin of good reading. "Forget thyself" is a necessary condition of good reading. Partly, perhaps, it is due to over-absorption in the memory of sensations and sentiments which overpowered him when he wrote in the solitude of his chamber, but which are somewhat unnatural and overstrained for exhibition before a concourse of auditors. But probably the principal reason is that one of the greatest charms of good reading arises from the co-operation of two spirits toward one end--the spirit of the author and the spirit of the reader. The reader of another's works seeks actively to express the spirit of his author, yet unintentionally he is expressing his own spirit also. The author enters into him and he throws himself into the author; his reading, therefore, is the union, the marriage, the interpenetration and expression of two spirits--the author's and his own. However interesting, therefore, and delightful it may be to hear an author read his own works, yet is there always lacking the dash and force and suggestiveness produced when a great author is interpreted by a great reader. The author merely reproduces his original meaning in what he wrote; the reader, through the agency of his own independent personality, idealises and diversifies that meaning.

Idealisation is one of the most beautiful effects of the fine art of reading. The most ordinary poem or piece of prose, when idealised by an accomplished artist in reading, grows lovely and sweet. And one way of learning to read well ourselves is to sit at the feet of some of these great masters of reading. Until we have heard a great reader read it is next to impossible to conceive what a fine and noble art true reading is. On the other hand, we can never become good readers by merely listening to others, any more than we can become good musicians by hearing others play.

In the art of reading, others may be our models; none but ourselves can be our makers. Listening to others may show us how the thing can best be done, but without doing the thing ourselves the thing can never be truly learned by us. Sometimes, indeed, listening to others has an effect quite the opposite of a model for imitation. "Pausanias tells us of an ancient player on the harp who was wont to make his scholars go to hear one who played badly that they might learn to hate his discords and false measures." In like manner, one way of learning to read well is to hear others read badly.

The art of reading aloud culminates in the expression of the spiritual through the medium of the physical. As sculpture aspires to express its ideals in stone, and painting in colour, and music in sound, so reading embodies its ideals in uttered words. A well-trained voice, clearness of enunciation, rhythm and flexibility of articulation--these are the physical framework of the art of reading aloud. Without first acquiring these the reader is as impotent as the painter without colour or the sculptor without stone. But the physics of reading are nothing more than its material framework. Unless the reader is inspired with ideals, reading will never rise to the dignity and glory of an art with him. He may be as a house-painter with his brush, or a mason with his stone--an industrious and useful artificer, but not an artist in his work.

MIDGET CHURCHES

By J. A. Reid.

The subject of church architecture is ever a fascinating one. Millions of money and an immense amount of time and labour have been spent in erecting places of worship, some of which are magnificent structures capable of seating several thousands. On the other hand, small, humble edifices sometimes suffice to meet the requirements of the worshippers; and it is with these that we here propose to deal.

Which of the midget churches is the smallest it is somewhat difficult to say; but it is believed that the smallest church in England is the truly miniature church of Lullington, in Sussex. It is a primitive and quaint building, constructed of flint with stone quoins, with a roof of red tiles. It can boast of a little weather-boarded turret at its west end; but its bell does not toll now, and the birds of the air have long since found the turret a convenient nesting-place. The church is but sixteen feet square. The pulpit is a pew, with panelled sides and door, and the furniture is of the plainest. Five, narrow, diamond-paned windows throw a scanty light upon the interior, in which there is accommodation for thirty persons--quite sufficient for the population of the village.

A somewhat larger edifice is the very interesting church of Wythburn, in Cumberland, the dimensions of which are--nave (length), thirty-nine feet; height of walls, ten feet; and width, fifteen feet. This was the original church, erected about one hundred and sixty years ago, and is of the simplest description. The roof is constructed of old ships' timber, and the windows are square holes with wooden frames. The chancel is eighteen feet long by fifteen feet by ten feet. The beautiful little east window is by Henry Holiday, and was put in to the memory of the late vicar. What a magnificent site for a church! The poets have thus expressed themselves with regard to this humble but beautifully situated church:--

Canon H. D. Rawnsley wrote:

"We cannot stay--for life is but an Inn, A halfway house--and, lo! the graves how near! Yet mighty minds have hither come for cheer Before the upward path they dared begin. Here Gray the pilgrim rested pale and thin, Here Wilson laughed, and Wordsworth murmured here. Here Coleridge mused, and ere he crossed the mere Hence Arnold viewed the Goal he hoped to win. And we who would Helvellyn's height essay, Or climb towards the gateway of the mound Where Dunmail died because his realm was fair, May join their gracious company who found Earth's beauty made Life's Inn a House of Prayer, And speed, refreshed of soul, upon our way."

Wordsworth, too, said:

"If Wythburn's modest House of Prayer, As lowly as the lowliest dwelling, Had, with its belfry's humble stock, A little pair that hang in air, Been mistress also of a clock (And one, too, not hung in crazy plight), Twelve strokes that clock would have been telling Under the brow of old Helvellyn."

And H. Coleridge:

"Humble it is, and meek, and very low, And speaks its purpose by a single bell: But God Himself, and He alone, can know If spiry temples please Him half so well."

We have given two instances of very small churches: let us now refer to a midget chapel. At Crawshawbooth, a village near Burnley, there is an extremely interesting diminutive place of worship known as the Friends' Meeting-House, an old-fashioned building covered with ivy, and environed by a well-cared-for burial ground. It contains half a dozen oak benches, on which the worshippers sit. Though these benches are sufficient to provide seating accommodation for about sixty, the attendance is rarely more than six. John Bright once worshipped here, walking from Rochdale, a distance of twelve miles. This quaint little place is naturally regarded with much interest by visitors.

It is interesting to point out that there is another Quaker meeting-house in the hamlet of Jordans, in Buckinghamshire, which is, if anything, smaller than that already referred to. It has been called the Shrine of Quakerism, for early in June every year a gathering of Quakers takes place. Here lie the remains of William Penn, one of the greatest of Quakers. At a cottage in the vicinity Milton wrote his "Paradise Lost."

To revert to churches, Kilpeck Church is well worth referring to as being a lovely little place of worship. The nave is thirty-six feet by twenty, and the chancel seventeen by sixteen feet ten inches, the total length being sixty-eight feet and the average breadth about sixteen feet. It is built upon a Saxon foundation, and Saxon remains are still to be seen--notably, a "holy-water" stoup that must be one thousand or eleven hundred years old. It is not possible to do justice to this beautiful church in a few words, but the accompanying photograph will give an idea of the quaintness and beauty of the structure. The sculpture is remarkably interesting.

An article on midget places of worship would be incomplete without a reference to the little lath-and-plaster church of Essex, consisting of nave, chancel, and a small turret. Hazeleigh Church, as it is named, stands in the near vicinity of Hazeleigh Hall--once the home of the Essex family of the Alleynes, one of whom founded the College of God's Gift at Dulwich. This little church has thus been described by the Rev. H. R. Wadmore, sometime curate:--

"... A little church beside a wood Securely sheltered from the sweeping blast; So quiet, so secure, it seems to be A very type of rest and all that's still."

This little church of Hazeleigh, owing to its simple character, differs but slightly from the roadside cottages. It has been styled "the meanest church in Essex," owing to its unpretentious character.

A pleasing little church is that of Chilcombe, near Bridport, Dorsetshire. Chilcombe is mentioned in the Doomsday Book, and at one time was the property of the Knight Hospitallers of St. John. The existing church dates from the thirteenth century. It is in the Roman style, and possesses a good Norman font. The length of the nave is twenty-two by fourteen feet, the chancel being thirteen by eleven feet. The owner of the parish and the patron of the living is Admiral the Hon. M. H. Nelson.

Another remarkably small church is that of St. Peter, on the Castle Rise, at Cambridge, its dimensions being twenty-five by sixteen feet. It is of Norman architecture.

England by no means possesses all the diminutive churches and chapels, and a very quaint and interesting church is that of Ledaig, near Oban. It is unsectarian, and its congregation numbers, on the average, twenty-five. It was founded by John Campbell, who was more familiarly known as "The Bard of Benderlock." He converted a natural cavern in the cliffs of Ledaig into a place of worship. A portion of a trunk of a tree, on which Robert Bruce is said to have rested, serves as a table and reading-desk. Trunks of trees around the sides of the cavern serve as seats for the worshippers. Mr. Campbell officiated as minister for many years to a band of faithful Highland worshippers in this curious church. Mr. Campbell was a remarkable personality. He was postmaster of Ledaig, and he also gained a considerable reputation as a poet. He was a much respected man, and his memory is dear to many.

I would like to refer to a very interesting midget church at Grove, near Leighton Buzzard, which I had the pleasure of visiting recently. It is the smallest in the county, and is a gable-roofed, barn-like fabric, with a door on the north side. In 1883 the little church was restored throughout, the fine old-fashioned square pews being replaced by open wooden seats, and it is now capable of seating about fifty people. Formerly the edifice contained a "three-decker"--clerk's desk, reading-desk, and pulpit combined. The churchyard contains many graves, but only one tombstone (eighteenth century). The dimensions of the church are--length, twenty-nine and a half feet; width, eighteen feet; height, about forty feet; in all probability, the church was formerly larger than at present. Grove is generally considered to be one of the smallest parishes in England, and one could hardly conceive of a smaller. It consists practically of a farmhouse and a lock-keeper's cottage.

We must not forget that at the top of Edinburgh Castle is the historical diminutive chapel of St. Margaret's, which was the private chapel of the pious Margaret, Queen of Malcolm III., during her residence in the castle. Until very recently it had been quite lost sight of, having been converted into a powder magazine and fallen into disrepair. In 1853, however, it was "discovered" and put into an efficient state of repair. It is considered to be the oldest and smallest chapel in Scotland, its dimensions being sixteen feet six inches by ten feet sixteen inches. The semicircular chancel is separated from the nave by a well-carved double-round arch, decorated with Norman zigzag mouldings. It is too small to be made available for divine service for the troops quartered in the castle, and the only use that it is now put to is for occasional baptisms and morning Communion.

There are several very small places of worship which are now, alas! in ruins. At Iona, for instance, on the west coast of Scotland, are the remains of an extremely small chapel, known as St. Oran's Chapel. It is very near Iona Cathedral. It is constructed of red granite, and its external measurements are sixty feet by twenty-two feet. It is now roofless, and is very old. This little chapel is believed to have been built by Queen Margaret in 1080. Its architecture is Romanesque, and it has one low entrance. This humble edifice is interesting inasmuch as within its walls is the tomb of Sir Walter Scott's "Lord of the Isles," the friend of Bruce.

There is another tiny barn-like edifice at Greenloaning, near Dunblane. The little church is situated adjacent to a farmhouse, and seems to have been erected for the benefit of the farm-workers. It is remarkably small. The scenery in the vicinity is magnificent, and the church is regarded with much interest by tourists.

St. Anthony's Chapel is another small building also in ruins. It is interesting owing to its historic surroundings, being in the near vicinity of Holyrood Palace. It comprises a hermitage, sixteen feet long, twelve feet wide, and eight feet high, and a Gothic chapel forty-three feet long, eighteen feet broad, and eighteen feet high.

One of the most remarkable of these little churches is that at Knaresborough, in Yorkshire, which is a very queer little chapel elegantly hewn out of the solid rock, the roof being beautifully ribbed and groined in the Gothic style. At the back of the altar is a large niche, where an image used to stand, and on one side of it is a place for the "holy-water" basin. There are also figures of three heads--designed, it is believed, for an emblematical allusion to the order of the monks at the once neighbouring priory. Possibly they were cut by some of the monks. The order was known as Sanctæ Trinitatis. A few yards away there is another head. It has been surmised that this is a representation of St. John the Baptist, to whom the chapel is supposed to be dedicated. There is a cavity in the floor, in which some ancient relic was rested. The chapel is ten feet six inches long, nine feet wide, and seven and a half feet high. Near the entrance is the following inscription:--

"Beneath yon ivy's spreading shade, For lonely contemplation made, An ancient chapel stands complete, Once the hermit's calm retreat From worldly pomp and sordid care, To humble penitence and prayer; The sight is pleasing, all agree-- Do, gentle stranger, turn and see."

The chapel is known as St. Robert's Chapel. St. Robert, the hermit who used it for devotions, was born about 1160, and was the son of Sir Toke Flouris, who was mayor of the city of York. In his youth he was noted for his piety, and he entered the Cistercian Abbey of Newminster in Northumberland. He was only there eighteen weeks, however, removing to York, and then to Knaresborough, where he retired from the world to live a life of contemplation in this restful spot. He died in the September of 1218. On one side of the entrance to the chapel, under the ivy, is the figure of a Knight Templar, cut in the rock, in the act of drawing his sword to defend the place from the violence of intruders. This is a queer and remarkable building, and, though not now used as a place of worship, the reference here made to it may prove interesting.

The cathedral of St. Asaph, in Flintshire, might be mentioned in this category as being the smallest cathedral in the country. It is in the shape of a simple cross in plan, consisting of a choir transept, nave, with five bays with aisles, and a central tower forty feet square and one hundred feet high. The choir was built in 1867-68 from the designs of the late Sir Gilbert Scott, R.A., and is of Early English architecture.

Passing references might also be made to the diminutive church of Warlingham, in Surrey, which runs the midget church of Wotton in that county very close; and to Grosmont Church, Monmouth, erected by Eleanor of Provence, a quaint little structure with an octagonal tower. There used to be a church known as St. Mildred in the Poultry, which was removed to Lincolnshire. It formerly occupied a position in the eastern end of Cheapside, and in 1872 it was taken to pieces and re-erected at Louth. It is generally considered to be the smallest church designed by Wren.

At St. Andrew, Greensted, near Ongar, there is a very small church, and it is a curiosity, inasmuch as it is believed to be a relic of the only church of Saxon origin built of wood remaining.

There is a small chapel at Point in View, near Exmouth. It is Congregational, and it provides seating accommodation for eighty persons, and forms one side of a block, the other three sides being taken up by four little almshouses, each consisting of two rooms occupied by four elderly maiden ladies. Over the chapel door is this motto:--

"One Point in View We all pursue."

The chapel contains a diminutive organ made by the pastor. In the vicinity there is a peculiar round house, the property of the Reichel family. It was a member of this family who founded the chapel and almshouses.

The little church of St. Nicholas at Hulcote should be mentioned. It is near Woburn, the seat of the Duke of Bedford. It is rather difficult to find, at any rate when the foliage is on the trees, so surrounded is it by them. It was built about the year 1610 by Richard Chernocke. Its measurements are: length, from the tower to the chancel step, thirty-nine and a half feet; chancel, eight and a half feet from step to east; width, sixteen feet three inches. There are carved oaken panels to many of the seats, and on the north wall, inside the chancel rails, are some valuable old monuments in memory of the Chernocke family. It is now between fifteen and twenty years since the church was used for divine service, but it is still used for funerals.

There is a little church, near London, known as Perivale. Although so near to the great metropolis, it is situated in a peculiarly lonely district. It lies in the valley of the Brent amid expansive meadows and hay farms. In 1871 there were only seven houses and thirty-three inhabitants in the parish. The midget church is situated at the end of a field near a low, semi-Gothic half-timber parsonage and a farmhouse. Although somewhat desolate, the spot is a restful one, and the hill and spire of Harrow in the distance make the scene pleasing to the eye. The little church is in the Early Perpendicular style, and consists of a nave, a narrow chancel, a rough wooden tower with short, pyramidal spire at the west, and porch on the south-west. The interior presents a well-kept appearance. The church was restored in 1875. In the windows is some late fifteenth-century glass containing figures of St. John the Baptist and St. Matthew, in fairly good condition, and of Mary and Joseph, which are not so well preserved.

The prettily situated ivy-clad church of St. Lawrence, Ventnor, Isle of Wight, is another edifice which might well be described as a midget church, although some years ago it was found necessary to enlarge it. The church originally was thirty feet eight and a half inches long, it is now forty feet eight and a half inches; and its breadth was formerly eleven feet, whereas it is now twenty feet. The height to the eaves is about six feet. The architecture is Old English, but not at all striking. The church dates back to about the year 1190.

We have now exhausted our space, but not our subject. There are other examples of diminutive churches throughout the country, but we have made a selection of the more interesting ones. However small the church, the worshippers have this assurance from the Founder of the Christian religion: "Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them"; and with that quotation this little article may fittingly be concluded.

THE MINOR CANON'S DAUGHTER

_THE STORY OF A CATHEDRAL TOWN._

By E. S. Curry, Author of "One of the Greatest," "Closely Veiled," Etc.